Responding to the perception that he’s being called a snob, he says:

If a guy is a good neighbor, if he puts in a day, if every once in a while he laughs,

if every once in a while he thinks about somebody else and, above all else,

if he can find his way to compassion and, and  tolerance, then he’s my brother,

I don’t give a damn if he didn’t get past finger-painting.

As I watched it, I thought it was a cool quote and i think a good measure of a person. I guess the point is, The West Wing is well written… and I would most likely vote for Jed Bartlett!!

The subject matter was a hike to the Devil’s Postpile National Monument and Rainbow Falls in Mammoth Lakes in Eastern California this past weekend. It was beautiful day and an even more beautiful part of the world.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KieUfZaECMQ

The weekend was topped off by hitting the mountain for some skiing before the resort closed for the season tomorrow. Skiing in July… who’s have thought!

Full photos from the trip here

So for those that are interested I thought I would jot down a few of my first impressions of my new iPhone 4. A couple of people have already asked! Bearing in mind I’m upgrading from an iPhone 3G so skipped a generation and some of the features that were in the 3GS such as video and general speed increases are new to me.

1. Size. When you stand the iPhone 4 next to the 3G/3GS they aren’t actually all that different in dimensions. The 4 is thinner, but the most obvious change is the flat back and squarer edges. It feels very different when holding it. The fit and finish feels A LOT nicer. The plastic is replaced by machined metal and high quality glass on the back. It just feels a lot more solid.

2. The Screen. Much was made of the new high quality “retina” display and when first using the phone the screen looks much crisper and detailed. But it’s not until you look at the old iPhone and compare them side to side that the difference really becomes obvious. The old screen looks pixelated and full of jagged edges after seeing the iPhone 4 whereas the new one is almost impossibly high res especially on those apps that have been updated to take advantage of it. It certainly is the nicest feature of the phone.

3. Speed. The whole phone is a lot snappier than the 3G. I can’t compare how much faster in reality than a 3GS but on paper it has 4x as much RAM as a 3G and 2x as much as a 3GS. Loading apps takes less than a second and data appears in as much time. Overall it’s much more responsive. As an example, I just tested loading the camera app which was notoriously slow. From clicking the icon to the “shutter” opening, ready to take a photo, it takes 13 seconds on the 3G… on the iPhone 4, just 2 seconds. Quite a bit faster!

4. FaceTime. So, when I first read about this it seemed like one of those features that’s kind of cool, but how much are you really going to use it. Video chat, even on a cell phone is not new. I have to say though, the implementation is awesome and although it will only run on a wifi connection for now, its seamless. The picture didn’t freeze or stutter once. I guess some of that comes down to how good your internet connection is. It doesn’t feel like you’re using a phone. Switching between front and back camera is also really nice and yes, although I don’t know how much I will use this feature after the novelty has worn off, it’s probably mainly limited by the fact that it only works between iPhone 4′s currently so my list of people to use it with is limited.

5. Camera. Can’t really test this properly as it’s dark now but it’s worth noting that the new flash is very bright. It lights up to illuminate what you’re taking a photo of (and also perhaps to reduce red eye) and then “flashes” with what seems like almost as much intensity as a small compact camera. More than enough for casual snaps. Video is also an awesome addition, really missed that on the 3G and although light conditions aren’t very good to test it now, the 720P HD video looks pretty great.

6. OS Changes. Although these aren’t completely specific to the new iPhone 4, multi tasking is such a overdue feature. As soon as you load Pandora to listen to music and click the home button to switch to reading your email, you realize how useful this is and wonder how you lived without it for so long. It does feel like some big wall stopping extra functionality has come down. Also, switching between apps once they’re loaded is instantaneous. The iPhone can finally handle multiple apps at once! Hoorah!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVV_HXtEbLo

We went to Joshua Tree National Park, about 120 miles east of L.A. three weeks ago and got some great shots of the Mojave dessert scenery, the titular Joshua Trees as well as some old abandoned mine equipment from the gold prospecting days. See the photos by clicking here

Then today we visited The Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens in San Marino, about 15 miles away on a gorgeous L.A. spring day. Many flowers were out in bloom and we also took a wander through the portrait gallery. Photos here

We are hoping to make this a semi regular thing so more photos to appear in the gallery, gallery.milestonkin.com in the near future.

As long as the movie industry can use the two letters ’3′ and ‘D’ to insinuate a “better” and more cutting edge movie experience and as long as people are willing to fork out the extra ticket prices so that theaters and studios can afford the hardware required to film and project in 3D I guess it’s here to stay.

Anyway… that clip I mentioned…

UPDATE: The anti 3D messiah preaches again!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZfRaWAtBVg

1. Don’t give away the joke.
If you’re uploading a clip and the title is “Man drops tray of food” I know what I’m in for. It’s especially annoying if the clip is 3 minutes long and the food dropping in question doesn’t happen until the last 10 seconds (see rules #5). By giving away the punch line in the title, why would I bother to watch? The Sixth Sense wasn’t called “The Sixth Sense: He Was Dead All Along”. You get the point.

2. You’re not Steven Spielberg
When uploading a 45 second clip of you juggling, I don’t need a 15 second intro sequence. You know the sort; “Bob Smith presents… A Bob Smith Production… In association with Jim Smith International …”. When you actually make a short film, or if your video is longer than 10 minutes than go for it, but I don’t want to waste 30% of the total video length on your ego!

3. 1983 called..
If you are going to upload clips from television (which is illegal and makes you a bad person etc etc), at least use the technology that almost all of us have in our DVR’s/Computers and capture it digitally. The days of recording your favorite show on audio cassette so you can relive it later are history. There is no greater YouTube crime than clips filmed with a camcorder from the screen of a TV. There are however degrees to this crime. The above is probably the homicide of YouTube crimes. The genocide of YouTube crimes is filming your TV with a camcorder while you move it around as if you’re simultaneously experiencing a 7.0 earthquake and the audio is replaced with a background soundtrack of a screaming baby/group of people talking loudly/music from another source. If you haven’t taken any effort to “produce” this clip, why should I bother to watch it?

4. Shut Up
Simply put. YouTube commenting should be removed. I am yet to see a video on YouTube, where the comments thread hasn’t descended into a slinging match with at least someone criticizing the US’s foreign policy, why the Yankee’s suck or why everyone else on the thread is an idiot and should burn in hell. All of this usually on a clip of a kitten playing with ball of string… I’m serious. Comments on YouTube, no matter how they start, inevitably end up getting out of control. I know this is not a unique problem to YouTube and representative of internet behavior as a whole, but come on. Enough is enough.

5. Keep it Short
The shorter the clip the better. My attention span isn’t very long. I’m coming to YouTube for brainless time wasting. If your clip is of someone slipping on a banana peel, the clip doesn’t need to be 2 minutes long. Sure, there should be some setup so I can anticipate what’s going to happen (providing you haven’t already told me in the title, see rule #1), but if I have to sit through two minutes of someone walking around not slipping on a banana peel, just so I can see four seconds of them actually slipping.. I am going to feel cheated.

It’s pretty hard to imagine the death of any other living celebrity being a bigger news story than Michael Jackson, not only was he known around the world but his popularity transcended generations. I can’t think of another musical artists who had the kind of popularity that he had during my lifetime. Thriller was probably the height of his career, for me Off the Wall is arguably one of the best albums of all time.

His death is a sad end to a unique life but there is a part of me that is definitely glad that the craziness and circus that defined his life for the last 15 years is over. Maybe now we can just remember Michael Jackson for the immense creative force that he was, whatever the opinion about him as a person and the way he lived his life.

How better to remember him, then with these 4 minutes of magnificence!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURRmWtbTbo

Back by popular demand, my hotel room video review. This one done at the Encore hotel (part of The Wynn resort) in Las Vegas.

Apologies for the crackly sound and stilted dialogue… it was late. I also noticed I say “um” a lot!